Revision as of 20:39, 7 August 2006

Contents

1 Introduction

Lojban is a constructed language. “Lojban was not designed primarily to be an international language, however, but rather as a linguistic tool for studying and understanding language. Its linguistic and computer applications make Lojban unique among international languages...” (NC:LojPer, page 15 par 1) -- the entire book is available also online, see the very bottom of the linked page.

It is an artificial language (and, unlike the more a posteriori Esperanto, it is rather of an a priori taste (Moo:LojPer)). It is a human language, capable of expressing everything. Its grammar uses (among others) things taken from mathematical logic, e.g. predicate-like structures. Although its does not make use combinatory logic directly (even, from a category logic / functional programming point of view, it uses also rather imperative ideas), but it may give hints and analogies, how combinatry logic can be useful in linguistics. I like searching Lojban examples illustrating the learned statements when learning about applicative universal grammar.

cu and vau are separators (and they are optional).
zo'e is only a place-keeper: the argument whose place is fiiled in by it is not specified.

3 Filipping

That is sold by you to me for some price

ta

cu

se vecnu

do

mi

zo'e

vau

x1

predicate

x2

x3

x4

Coparing vecnu and se vecnu, it is of taste combinator of combinatory logic.
Comparing structure:

x1

cu

predicate

x2

x3

x4

vau

do

vecnu

ta

mi

zo'e

ta

se vecnu

mi

4 Repeating

Words mi, do correspond to English personal pronouns I (me), you. Lojban has other similar words, e.g. ri. Word ri can be regarded as an argument (of the predicate) which repeats the previous argument.

Somebody

talks

to sombebody

about something

in some language

x1

predicate

x2

x3

x4

A little vocabulary:

mi

I

tavla

talk

do

you

la lojban.

Lojban

Syntax:

I talk to you about the Lojban language in Lojban

mi

cu

tavla

do

la lojban.

la lojban.

vau

x1

predicate

x2

x3

x4

The word ri helps us avoiding repeating the argument of predicate in this case:

mi cu tavla do la lojban. ri vau

I think, it is more imperative solution, than the combinator of combinatory logic, but in this case, it has the same effect. If Lojban used combinators, I should write (using the elementary duplicator ):

(mi cu tavla do) la lojban.

Deferred combinator helps us even more here:

mi cu (tavla) do la lojban.

-sequences could be used also for avoiding the many-many repeating zo'e words (of course, if Lojban used combinators):